By: Oliver Damascus

So I recently found out that LeVar Burton and I have the same birthday and basically that means I’m changing my name to Geordi now. It’s possible I’m kidding about that. It’s…possible. (Also the same birthday as Kim Jong-Il and Ice-T?)

And yeah, I used to wear a headband over my eyes and pretend to be Geordi as a kid. Because that seemed really awesome when I was five/seven.

Additionally! HAS ANYBODY NOTICED THAT OF ALL THE GUYS ON TNG GEORDI IS CLEARLY THE STANDOUT FOX OF THEM ALL (well, maybe Picard because brainy is the new sexy and all, etc etc, BUT CONVENTIONALLY SPEAKING) AND
HE
NEVER
GETS
LAID???

(as far as I can recall)

Like what’s up with that? RACISM IS WHAT’S UP WITH THAT. Like, fuck Riker, fuck Worf, Geordi owns their asses in the looks AND the awesome departments. I want to go back in time and a little over in space and hit some writers in the head until they write him a harem of love interests or at least every other guest star making eyes at him. “Ladies, please! I am married to my ship!” a la Nikola Tesla via Kate Beaton, sort of. I’d bang Geordi in a heartbeat. Oh my god. Not Reading Rainbow guy though, that would be like lusting after Mr. Rogers or your favorite uncle or something. Not that that doesn’t happen anyway? Pretty sure I had a crush on my aunt when I was six, and def wanted to marry my dad when I was four or five. TMI?

My top “10” childhood heroes:
1. Grover from Sesame St but especially from The Monster at the End of this Book
2. Madeline (“In an old house in Paris all covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines”)
3. Mulan (obvious trans guy choice? “Who is that girl I see, staring right back at me? When will my reflection show who I am inside?” etc)
4. Matilda (of Roald Dahl fame) – incl movie version
5. Harry Potter
6. also Albus Dumbledore
7. Luke Skywalker
8. Samwise Gamgee (damn you Sean Astin you ruined this character for me, hopefully not forever)
9. uh, probably LeVar Burton
9 and 1/2. Snout, from the Bruce Coville alien books (“Aliens Stole My Body” in particular)
9 and 3/4. Isabelle from the Ogden Nash poems
9 and 4/5. also Custard the Dragon
9 and 5/6. Ella from Ella Enchanted (who I always sort of wanted to get with her friend Areida from finishing school instead of the prince, even before I really realized it? Like, I loved Prince Char, but Areida. Same with Jane Eyre and Helen Burns. I don’t know, it was a thing I sensed, and I’ve never really even gotten into femslash, idk whatever)
9 and 6/7. SE Hinton and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes – teenage novelist prodigies, okay? I wanted to be a famous published author by the time I was fourteen max. That didn’t happen, but still.
10. Holden Caulfield (shut up I loved him no one understood his tortured soul like I did at age 12)